OK snapshot: Bolaget (The Company)

En fredag utanför Systembolaget :)

[A friday outside the liquor store]

Snapshot from Stockholm, Sweden.

Bacon bits and pieces on the internet

Oh, hi again everybody!

Life is going on as usual, and some new and old things on the internet...

knit bacon (yes!) and hamburgers [Core 77]

others make fantastic art out of subway maps [Core 77]

or octopi out of sausages,

make food out of the throw-away parts (which reminds me of the one time my grandfather tried to make porridge out of potato peels, not a success, and I was retold the story as a little kid by my mom) [NY Times]

some whiskey needs special fungi... great science story [WIRED]

and as usual, Shorpy manages to find the best end photos.

PS.  This is post 2050 on this blog.  That is a good number too, as is 44 and 33. Right LA?

Stamp of the Day: Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a wonderful spice, and what you eat when you taste that brown powder is ground up bark from cinnamon trees.  The story is that the best cinnamon has to be cut with silver knifes (I bet that is not true!). There are at least 4 species that have been used as cinnamon, and they taste slightly different.  This Indian stamp depicts the most valuable one, which has bark that rolls up on both ends of the edges, into a tight cigar-like roll.  Cinnamon is in the Lauraceae, the laurel family, same as bay leaves, sassafras, and laurel. I love cinnamon, in small doses, on cinnamon rolls, rice porridge, and in Swedish Christmas glögg. In Swedish, the word for cinnamon is 'kanel'.  I know, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Bits and pieces from the internet: Shaken, not stirred edition

If you ever wanted to know how a dog REALLY feels and looks in the middle of shaking off water from its body, you should look at Carlo Davidson's fantastic photos.  Amazing, and incredible.  I remember that we blew in the labradors' ears when I grew up to get them to shake off the water by the shore, and not in the middle of the picnic blanket. The fur coat of a lab can hold a lot of water, indeed.

Earthquakes are scary.  Yesterday there was a rather big one here on the east coast of USA, which is very unusual.  I missed it, was probably in the car or walking outside, but people in my work building felt desks and walls shaking and heard cracking noises.  A friend in Washington said his whole lab building was shaking for 15 seconds and everybody ran outside; most people realized it was an earthquake. Considering it was a 5.8 on the scale, very little damage happened.  But at first, many thought it might be a terrorist attack.  We are getting awfully close to the 10-year anniversary of Sept 11, 2001...

Talking about terrorism, here is an interesting list of 25 people and industries that profit from fear. This is worth reading and thinking about.  It is not just insurance companies and the beauty industry, but also seemingly harmless groups such as advocacy groups, the pet industry, and toy companies.  It is much, much worse here in the US than in Sweden, mostly because here in the US people has to blame and sue someone when something bad happens.

And here is the answer to why James Bond wanted his martinis shaken, not stirred. In case you wondered. (I don't like martinis, so I don't really care either way, honestly.)

Stamp of the Day: Espresso

In honor of our new machine in the kitchen! Swedish stamps of Italian espressos.  Yummy!

Day after Thanksgiving

fridge full of gorgeous edible leftovers
meaty turkey legs, apple cider sauce, caramelized sweet potatoes
sleep-in morning, apricot-golden sunrise, then hot coffee
warm socks and thick sweater on

outside ice-cold stormy winds hit our house
stiff pine needles are constricted on the branches in fear
of the snowstorm that has yet to come
Lapsang Souchong is warming my hands, heart, and brain

Why is it...

That most commercial lemonade drinks are made with artificial lemon flavoring, but some dishwasher detergents contain real lemons?

Her new favorite spot

beer cat, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

...which actually is already gone with the cardboard recycling... The box I mean, not the cat Smokey.

Alternative fuels...

In Scotland, the energy production might soon have a new scent:

"Using samples from the Glenkinchie Distillery in East Lothian, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed a method of producing biofuel from two main by-products of the whisky distilling process – "pot ale", the liquid from the copper stills, and "draff", the spent grains." (link)

Those Scots, they are really ingenious!  And if they base it on Laphroaig, then they even have some smoke! Meanwhile, poorer people are burning cow dung and in America bad things are going on:

"Each year, American food waste represents the energy equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil, according to new research from the University of Texas."  (link)

OK snapshot: To sleep...

...perchance to dream?
Better get another cup!

OK snapshot: Language is not easy

"Do not operate machinery" is a common disclamer. But what about writing?
;)
(Seen in Stockholm, Sweden, presumably)

OK Snapshot: Älg å svälj

OK reports: I found this on the street just half an hour ago. I picked it
up, thinking of the Americans in the family. :)

LS adds: this must be from a 'mousserande öl' (moussing beer). Or maybe the
Moose Drool beer?

Apropos coffee whitener... (see below)

I believe the coffee just ground here at home for tomorrow morning is called Dead Mans Reach or something like that :). And it is never decaffeinated. (But I drink tea in the mornings, coffee is for the people that get up an hour earlier...)

OK snapshot:: White coffee

"No milk in my coffee, thanks."
Photo by OK in Stockholm.

Vacation wine

Some cheap wine that might be useful for tired parents :)

The red one (Daddy) is better than the white (Mommy), I think, but both are fully drinkable.

Enjoy!

Homemade hot and sour feasts

Ready to taste my newly made Southwestern Hot Sauce bottled in recycled akvavit mini bottles? Me too, in about a week or two when the sauce has matured a bit. It is made from organic jalapenos and bell peppers, plus a lot of spices. I hope it is hot but not too hot. It was made from jalapenos and dried ancho pepper powder, plus other spices. This weekend I also made sambal oelek (a spicy Southwest Asian condiment, packed in an old baby food jar (I knew they could be used for something good). Sambal is just chilies, a tiny bit of salt and sugar, and a little distilled vinegar. I used the Sapporo variety of chilies for this, mainly because that is what I had just harvested from the garden.

And then I packed lots of herbs into vinegars that are now maturing. You take herbs (clean, but no need to wash them), stuff them in the bottom of a jar, heat up white wine or apple cider vinegar, pour it over the herbs boiling hot, close tight and swirl around niside to sterilize all the surfaces inside, let sit for 2-3 weeks, then remove herbs and put ready vinegar in bottles.

I made lemon+mint, tarragon+garlic, chilipepper+oregano+thyme, basil+chilipepper+chinese chives, plain basil, sage vinegar (that is the photo of the rounded leaves with little hairs on them) and some more. I filled a whole big jar with fresh hot serrano chilies and poured hot vinegar over them too, in a month or two they are ready to be eaten by PP. The rest of us think they are a bit (rather a lot) too hot for human consumption directly out of the jar.

I also made basil-infused olive oil which smells fantastic! You take lots of basil leaves, put them in a pot with a cup of olive oil, let is boil slowly for 5 min (not get too hot!), then let it cool, strain away the leaves and bottle it up. Store in fridge. The vinegars you don't need to store in the fridge. (This last photo is from left to right: basil oil, pickled serrano chili peppers, and mint+lemon vinegar.)

OK snapshot: Sauerkraut in champagne

Oh, all the things you can find in Swedish supermarkets! Snapshot by OK.

OK snapshot: Tour de Frog

The French are revolutionizing their wine labels! The poor frog does not
look that arrogant. Snapshot by OK, and I believe the label was found in
the wine cabinet in our friend JU's home.

OK snapshot: Hundbar

Man's best friend also needs a drink now and then. Hund = Dog in Swedish.
Photo by OK, from Stockholm.

Mining down in history - a visit to Falu Gruva

Falun Historical Mine (Falu gruva) in Falun and the province of Dalarna in Sweden is a great place to get a sense of many things, such as history, hard work, darkness, and the power of minerals. It is also called Stora Kopparberg (Great Copper Mountain, and the company Stora started in 1288, must be one of the oldest in the world). We went there during our roadtrip to descend into the areas of the mine that was mined in the 1700s and 1800s. First they used fire and water to get the copper ore out (fire mining), then gunpowder, and finally, thanks to Nobel, dynamite. The 45 min tour took us through low tunnels, dripping walls and ceilings (thanks for the hats and raincoats!), and large open rooms inside the mine. Down at 67 meters we saw a living Christmas tree, green and fresh, but it hadn't been watered for 4 years. It had been totally preserved by the minerals in the water in the mine. (More photos from Falun on Flickr.)

The miners had it hard, they had to descend on long stairs or by riding the ore bucket down and jump off at the right tunnel entrance, the bucket didn't stop. More miners apparently died from missing the jump, than in other accidents in the mine. The mining started already in the 1300s, and this area has been the center for the mining and metal industry in Sweden since then. One wall is a guestbook with signatures from many of the kings and queens of Scandinavia. The all so common red paint on Swedish buildings also comes from this mine and is called 'Falu rödfärg' (Falu red paint). It was a mining byproduct and was the cheapest paint available, so it became very popular.

Linneaus visited the mine in the 1700s as part of his travels in Dalarna and was horrified by the conditions and drinking habit of the mine workers.
'Linnaeus had the opinion that the people of Dalarna lived a sober and healthy life apart from those in Falun connected with the mine. The miners often died of stone dust in their lungs. These miners also used to drink great quantities of ale. A new guest was expected to drink, without pausing, two or three great tankards of ale when he arrived and Linnaeus wrote: "your belly might burst, your head crack open and your health, the joy of all life, be abandoned." '

Linneaus was on the trip as the world's first ethnobotanist and noted that: "when there was a shortage of flour, trees were chopped down and the bark ground to eke out the flour. Linnaeus thought the people should grow potatoes instead, but many were still skeptical as to this new-fangled vegetable."
People didn't understand that you could only eat the tubers and not the leaves of the potatoes, so rumors that it was a deadly plant abound. (link to more Linnaeus information)




























Outside the mine there were other historical things to look at. The Swedish Ferguson Tractor organization had its local meet with about 5 old grey beasts on display. Inside the Mining Center, you could admire some classic motorcycles, including an old American Indian, an iceracing bike (with nasty dubbs on the tires), and the bike that Sweden won VM in Speedway with. An old Swedish SJ railroad boxcar was displayed on the plaza, painted in the ubiquitous red of course with white lettering and a white royal crown. I have always wondered what all the numbers on the box cars mean. There were also prominently displayed posts with dog poop bags on the plaza - in Sweden the owner is always responsible to 'pick up after your dog'.



















PS. Falun is a World Heritage site. The mining stopped in 1992.